bars of soap, beef hot plates, and barely-there water pressurebecause all the photos from our trip to chang bai shan are with jinni or xiaoyun or paul, and the best hopes i have of obtaining any of them are from paul, via facebook, as he has to clear the pictures - he borrowed shangren's camera - and that might take a rather long time, the above picture is sort of how chang bai shan looked like when we were there.
it looks like a scene from tintin in tibet, firstly because it is a scene from said comic book, and secondly because it really did look like that, with less snow, minus the yeti.
it looks like a scene from tintin in tibet, firstly because it is a scene from said comic book, and secondly because it really did look like that, with less snow, minus the yeti.
***
this might very well be my last time touring china, and i'm glad i decided to go to changbaishan after all, because these outdoors-y activities are really my kind of thing, except that it rained and rained on our third day there and i was colder than i'd ever been in my entire life. i decided to forego a look-see around the underground forest (地下森林 di4 xia4 sen1 lin2) because my jeans were soaked through; i sat on a chair in the souvenir shop at the bottom of the west side of the mountain and tried very hard to think warm thoughts. but after a while i was shivering so much that the shopkeepers offered me one of those roly-poly coats.
even after i had that, a while later, i started shivering again. i think my dentist is going to have a lot to say about the state of my teeth because they couldn't stop chattering.
at that point in time i sat there and prayed like anything for some warmth.
and lo and behold, the shopkeepers then offered to bring me to the rooms they stayed in behind the shop, where it was lovely and warm because they had a 炕 (kang4). wikipedia describes it as a sleeping platform made from bricks or other forms of fired clay, and heat is channeled to its interior through a flue which leads to a charcoal stove. we also slept on one in the youth hostel where we stayed.
so i spent a much happier and extremely thankful half-an-hour perched on edge of the 炕, chatting with the 阿姨 who ran the shop along with various family members whose relation to her i couldn't quite catch because of her thick accent, watching a Very Drama tv serial at the same time. she kept urging me to move up so that my legs would be entirely on the 炕, but i felt it wouldn't have been very polite to do so.
i ended up buying quite a lot of postcards from the shop, and if you like i can show them to you when i come home. or you can ask me to send one to you.
even after i had that, a while later, i started shivering again. i think my dentist is going to have a lot to say about the state of my teeth because they couldn't stop chattering.
at that point in time i sat there and prayed like anything for some warmth.
and lo and behold, the shopkeepers then offered to bring me to the rooms they stayed in behind the shop, where it was lovely and warm because they had a 炕 (kang4). wikipedia describes it as a sleeping platform made from bricks or other forms of fired clay, and heat is channeled to its interior through a flue which leads to a charcoal stove. we also slept on one in the youth hostel where we stayed.
so i spent a much happier and extremely thankful half-an-hour perched on edge of the 炕, chatting with the 阿姨 who ran the shop along with various family members whose relation to her i couldn't quite catch because of her thick accent, watching a Very Drama tv serial at the same time. she kept urging me to move up so that my legs would be entirely on the 炕, but i felt it wouldn't have been very polite to do so.
i ended up buying quite a lot of postcards from the shop, and if you like i can show them to you when i come home. or you can ask me to send one to you.
other more memorable highlights of the trip include jinni dropping the very first bar of soap we purchased into the toilet while she was showering: according to her, it slid out of her grasp, onto the floor and into the toilet (a squatting one), whereupon she made to grab it but it just disappeared!
there was also one of the best beef hot plates i've had in my 21 years, and the showerhead which produced a mere trickle of water, either scaldingly hot or terrifyingly cold, so i had to bathe in a splash-myself-with-water kind of way; and the fact that the chicken dishes we ordered were all served last - we came to the conclusion that that was probably because they'd been running about in the garden when we ordered our food.
what's more, they all came served with their chopped-off heads.
paul even thought the head of one of the chicken heads, even though already boiled with mushrooms to make soup, experienced a bout of rigor mortis, and cackled at him and blinked its eyes.
i really ought not to insinuate that he's a little mentally unsound, especially because i suggested that we bite our thumbs to draw blood and have a mini-ceremony to become sworn siblings after i'd clung to his arm for dear life as we struggled to move forward against a ferocious wind at the top of changbaishan, trying to shriek louder than it at random intervals, usually things along the lines of HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO ACCOUNT TO JON/JASMINE IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO YOU PLEASE DON'T GET BLOWN OFF THE MOUNTAIN HOLD ON TO THE RAILING ASDGGFKALJFSFSGKL.
and on my part, PAUL THINK OF JASMINE AND HOW YOU MUST SEE HER BEFORE YOU DIE.
i believe i now understand a bit better about how soldiers going to war, when written about in storybooks, carried pictures of their sweethearts in their hearts to the front. not that i actually thought that we would die, but the fact that it's summer all year round in singapore might have had something to do with the fact that we found ourselves Rather Unable to cope with the bits of ice being flung at our faces, the rain and spray from the waterfall whose origin we were trying to trace, and the wind, which was of the Threaten To Blow You Off the @#$#%#^! Mountain kind.
we didn't make it to the origin of the waterfall, because we got to a place in the path which was completely snowed up and we realised that we were the only four souls up there. the others were a little disappointed, but me, i was just thinking of getting into a pair of dry pants. . . among other things, see above. i also thought that by itself, the climb up the mountain and the views along the way had been worth it.
when i go trekking in the future, i'm going in the summertime. trees, grass, unfrozen lakes, flowers and more predictable weather. apparently you can experience all four seasons on changbaishan - the rain turned to snow on our way down.
going up the north slope (which we did on the second day) led us to an aerial view of the 天池 (tian1 chi2), source of the waterfall and what changbaishan is famous for. it was too foggy to see anything clearly but the fog did lift enough for me to have a nice enough view.
what was more exciting was seeing the stone which marked the border between north korea and china, walking beyond it, and being shouted at by a guard. does that count as having been to north korea?
there was also one of the best beef hot plates i've had in my 21 years, and the showerhead which produced a mere trickle of water, either scaldingly hot or terrifyingly cold, so i had to bathe in a splash-myself-with-water kind of way; and the fact that the chicken dishes we ordered were all served last - we came to the conclusion that that was probably because they'd been running about in the garden when we ordered our food.
what's more, they all came served with their chopped-off heads.
paul even thought the head of one of the chicken heads, even though already boiled with mushrooms to make soup, experienced a bout of rigor mortis, and cackled at him and blinked its eyes.
i really ought not to insinuate that he's a little mentally unsound, especially because i suggested that we bite our thumbs to draw blood and have a mini-ceremony to become sworn siblings after i'd clung to his arm for dear life as we struggled to move forward against a ferocious wind at the top of changbaishan, trying to shriek louder than it at random intervals, usually things along the lines of HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO ACCOUNT TO JON/JASMINE IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO YOU PLEASE DON'T GET BLOWN OFF THE MOUNTAIN HOLD ON TO THE RAILING ASDGGFKALJFSFSGKL.
and on my part, PAUL THINK OF JASMINE AND HOW YOU MUST SEE HER BEFORE YOU DIE.
i believe i now understand a bit better about how soldiers going to war, when written about in storybooks, carried pictures of their sweethearts in their hearts to the front. not that i actually thought that we would die, but the fact that it's summer all year round in singapore might have had something to do with the fact that we found ourselves Rather Unable to cope with the bits of ice being flung at our faces, the rain and spray from the waterfall whose origin we were trying to trace, and the wind, which was of the Threaten To Blow You Off the @#$#%#^! Mountain kind.
we didn't make it to the origin of the waterfall, because we got to a place in the path which was completely snowed up and we realised that we were the only four souls up there. the others were a little disappointed, but me, i was just thinking of getting into a pair of dry pants. . . among other things, see above. i also thought that by itself, the climb up the mountain and the views along the way had been worth it.
when i go trekking in the future, i'm going in the summertime. trees, grass, unfrozen lakes, flowers and more predictable weather. apparently you can experience all four seasons on changbaishan - the rain turned to snow on our way down.
going up the north slope (which we did on the second day) led us to an aerial view of the 天池 (tian1 chi2), source of the waterfall and what changbaishan is famous for. it was too foggy to see anything clearly but the fog did lift enough for me to have a nice enough view.
what was more exciting was seeing the stone which marked the border between north korea and china, walking beyond it, and being shouted at by a guard. does that count as having been to north korea?
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